blursvsblushTell them apart

Which to use

“blurs” and “blush” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#45,815
“blurs” frequency rank
#13,671
“blush” frequency rank
59486
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature blurs blush
Definition plural of blur An act of blushing; a pink or red glow on the face caused by embarrassment, shame, shyness, love, etc.

Where the eye mixes blurs and blush

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. blurs and blush follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
blurs
5 ch
blush

Why the eye confuses blurs with blush

A purely visual mix-up. blurs (/blɜːz/) and blush (/blʌʃ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59486, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

blurs is recorded at frequency rank #45,815, classified as anoun, pronounced /blɜːz/. blush is at rank #13,671, tagged as anoun, pronounced /blʌʃ/.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 59486, this pair ranks #105,886 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of blurs vs blush

Shared letters: blsu. Private to "blurs": r. Private to "blush": h.

"blurs" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "blush" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • blurs ← bblurs · bllurs · blrus · blurrs · blurss · blusr · bulrs · lburs
  • blush ← bblush · bllush · blsuh · bluhs · blushh · blussh · bulsh · lbush

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "blurs" and "blush" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/blɜːz/ versus /blʌʃ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "blurs" or "blush"?
"blush" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,671 in our English list, against #45,815 for "blurs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "blurs" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "blush" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #105,886 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "blurs" and "blush" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "blurs vs bursa". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #105,886 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list